It is one in the same. I can see how such a thing could be over your head.
- no, there are 2 things you are saying there, and those 2 things have 2 separate meanings.
You are saying: 1. Bonds are fine. you are also saying 2. If they are not fine, it does not matter.
Those are 2 statements that basically say: whatever, bonds don't matter. Well, sure, to the rest of the world they won't matter once nobody wants them, even if they can't get anything for them, it won't matter, they'll just lose some savings.
But to the US consumer it will matter plenty, because the products that are financed by those bonds will stop coming in. It won't be about bonds then, it will be about not having any products.
When the SHTF I can use my packaged metals, yours will be worthless. Or I could just take them at that point.
- you do have a point that I will need to have protection some time in the future, but I will be the one deciding when that time is due for me to get that extra protection, just like I was the one deciding when it was time to get protection against inflation in the first place.
See, I don't know what you own, but if you don't own real money, you'll run out of things fairly quickly when there are no things around and what used to be considered money no longer is.
I am sorry, but just talking about cookies doesn't go far enough to describe what is happening here. It is about zombie browsers, that are just building in more and more functionality to turn your computer into a device that is not controlled by you, but is controlled by various special interests.
On the other hand you, as a user, are clearly not the customer of a browser developer company. The customers seem to be the advertisers, CAs, anybody that wants to control what you are doing. You, as a user, are a product. We used to say this about FB and such, but isn't this also true about browsers?
There needs to be a way for the user to control what is happening on his machine, otherwise it's not a general purpose computer, but some proprietary gadget that you have there. If this is not clear to the browser developers then there will be more forks built that will be Freer for the users, but there also maybe something else done, like a VM to control all of this run away software. Start it in a VM and when you are done, kill that VM and there is no cookie.
Now this is going to be interesting to observe the heads of evangelical Christians explode, that even the scientists who are themselves Christians no longer can maintain that those biblical stories have anything there but a fairy tale.
On a lighter note, here is some NSFW but still quite political material that may cheer some of those Christians up. On the other hand there are naked boobs there, so what do Christians say about naked boobs?
Have you ever wondered about why there are so many lawyers in USA?
I left a few comments on this site about it, and it looks like the reason is government money in education. All of those loans that are given to the students create artificial demand for higher education, so most people who are in colleges are there simply because they are told that if they don't have some degree, they won't get a job. Any job.
In this environment of fear, the students then feel they have no choice but to get higher education but they don't care and/or don't know what they want, so they choose the easiest stuff - sociology or other humanities.
Then they end up borrowing tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for this, it's a huge money transfer from tax payers/creditors to those institutions with students being used as collateral, they end up with mortgages and no houses to show for those mortgages.
So by the end of a 4 year degree, they finally figure out they don't have any better chances of getting a job with that worthless degree, and many of them go at it again, but this time in law, because it's the next closest thing to humanities.
Basically the artificial demand for higher education causes huge amounts of borrowing, which itself pressures the students who don't need to be there to go through a few (2-3) cycles of studying different things, entering the work force much later than previous generations and it produces huge armies of lawyers.
With more and more lawyers you get more and more lawsuits and that shouldn't be a surprise.
I don't understand one thing: why should any weapons be concealed at all?
Actually, can't a state pass a law that everybody is required to have a gun on them at all times, preferably some form of a sub-machine gun at the minimum?
This is fear, and that fear is raising gold prices to crazy levels.
- no, this comes from you misunderstanding basic economics.
Gold is money. There is no fear and there is no uncertainty or doubt that fiat is debased and will continue being debased. This government is convinced that it must destroy the currency for their Keynesian solutions to work, so they will do so. Nominal gold value changes but actual purchasing power stays.
US treasuries are fine, because if they fail it won't matter.
- hold on, hold on. So are you saying they are "fine" OR are you saying that it does not matter whether they are "fine" or not? I am not clear on your statement, which is it?
US treasuries are not fine at all, with interest rates being lowest ever (actually 10 year bond hitting 1.99% yield! That's the most expensive coupon and the lowest yield in history of that 10 year bond.)
US treasuries are in an enormous bubble, with Fed now secretly purchasing where it was purchasing openly for 6 months till June 22. Fed was buying 100% of all new printed bonds, there were no buyers. They printed 600 billion USD and that's how much debt Treasury issued in that time.
If the USA defaults your gold will be worthless, since you can't eat it.
- USA has defaulted already a number of times, last was in 1971, when it defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. It also defaulted during Civil war and around WWI.
Does this actually do anything to gold? Well no, because nominal prices do not matter at all, the only prices that are important are prices relative to gold and those are pretty much always the same.
Also I bring your attention to the fact that it is after all a depression right now, since fuel is cheapest ever in history of USA as well - under 10 cents per gallon. Those are 10 silver cents of-course, minted prior to 1965.
Can I eat gold? Well, excuse me, can you eat US dollars? Gold is money, don't forget that. I have a long record on this site, for many years now saying the same thing, and I like to reference those old comments often.
Gold highs do not go back 40 years, look a the plummet in the 80s.
- yes, in nominal terms after US defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes, an ounce started at 35 USD and went all the way up to 800USD, and then Paul Volcker came and set interest rates to over 20%.
THAT was what took gold down, because with money that expensive, people want to have it, not other assets. Gold is money, but dollar became an investment. Money is not an investment, it's a store of value, unit of account and means of exchange.
Of-course gold went down at that time to 350USD/ounce, still 10 times as high as it was in 1971.
However now the interest rates have been 1 and 0% for over a dozen of years, so the debt of USA now is so huge, that 1% move in interest rates causes USA to spend 200BILLION dollars more just to service the debt (interest payments increase by 200Billion with each 1%), so you think they'll bring interest rates back up?
Don't you know that Bernanke came out and said he won't bring interest rates back up for 2 years? That's a huge Bernanke put, he now gave the market a green light to go ahead and gamble on the Treasury market, because he is guaranteeing a return or whatever the Treasury yields. That's why the Treasury prices are up.
But this can't last due to this reason: the inflation, which USA exports to foreign countries, is causing massive price hikes in those countries, followed by social unrest and political instability. Basically by holding US debt and dollars, the foreign governments are asking their own people to sacrifice ever more in terms of their purchasing power to bail out US consumer.
How long do you think that will last for? I don't see that goi
. And you might claim "market pressure", but that's just code speak
- of-course it's market pressure. Which part of this statement you can't understand:
These innovations were hard on employees, and turnover of workers was very high, while increased productivity actually reduced labor demand. Turnover meant delays and extra costs of training, and use of slow workers.
- people were coming and going, he could not retain talent.
That IS market pressure and it absolutely had NOTHING to do with any unions. He was driving his people hard and needed them to work hard and to stay in the company. He extremely anti-union and wouldn't have allowed one in the factory, but the market pressure of people LEAVING the company made him figure it out and do this:
Ford solved the employee turnover problem by doubling pay to $5 a day, cutting shifts from nine hours to an eight hour day for a 5 day work week (which also increased sales; a line worker could buy a T with less than four months' pay), and instituting hiring practices that identified the best workers, including disabled people considered unemployable by other firms
- this is ABOVE ANY UNION SHOP SALARY at the time. He was heavily criticized by a number of other employers and Wall street guys for this move.
However he achieved the goal:
Employee turnover plunged, productivity soared, and with it, the cost per vehicle plummeted. Ford cut prices again and again and invented the system of franchised dealers who were loyal to his brand name.
That's how it's done in business and without government regulations and income taxes. This is search for more profit that makes a man come up with solutions and even invent new business practices (the franchised dealers). That's not how governments or unions do anything, that's how a guy who wants to make money does stuff.
But, of course, you can keep thinking that your anecdotal evidence actually counts for something.
- This is historical data, not anecdotal. This is the recorded history, are you questioning the facts?
Yes, history actually counts for everything.
Forget EVERY OTHER EXAMPLE FROM HISTORY of employers treating their employees like crap.
- so they weren't bending over backwards with their employees? That means the employees weren't really used properly, so then competition, like Ford, appeared. But what are you talking about anyway, you are saying I am providing "anecdotes" and you, yourself, aren't even giving a single example. It's all empty hand waving.
He is not a religious nutter, current POTUS is more religious than that guy (or at least he pretends to be). But a bubble? Seriously?
Do you know that current stocks of gold mining companies are only barely above the 2008 lows? That's while the metal itself is going higher and higher based on inflation (money printing). Stocks are almost not moving though, that's not any bubble that ever existed, in a bubble stocks move. This is fear - people think like you do. They told me the same thing 5 years ago - it's a bubble. They have been saying that for 40 years now, since Nixon defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. But no, US treasuries are a bubble. This is just reflection on where economy is.
The correct person to vote for is found in my sig.
But I'll go further than that, he is also the smartest financially - that hit piece is hacked together to make it seem like a solid investment based on real economic understanding is bad policy. However what it does not say is that if sound policy is enacted, then nominal values of those investment will plunge, as interest would shot straight up, like they did in 1981.
Wouldn't you want your investment to look this way over the 10 year period?
Goldcorp GG since 2001 is up 1000%. Barrick Gold ABX is up 300% in the decade. Newmont Mining C Stock NEM is up 300% in the decade. Agnico Eagle Mines AEM is up 700% in the decade. AngloGold Ashanti AU is up 300% in 10 years. IAM Gold IAG is up 1000% over 10 years. Mag Silver MVG is up over 1000% in 10 years. Pan American Silver PAAS up over 1000% in 10 years. Silver Wheaton SLW is up over 2000% in 10 years.
Bush was almost right to ask that question, he just missed part of it.
It's not "Is our children learning?"
It's "WHAT is our children learning?"
I think the children are learning that they have no rights and they must comply and they always can be taken in by the cops, never mind what the infraction is. The children "is" learning intimidation by the state officials.
Free market capitalist society increases the wealth of everybody, as it did by producing all of the goods that people want and making those goods better and cheaper and more accessible with every new competitor and iteration.
Actively absent? Must not have paid attention to all the pesky details like railroad grants, continual expansion of territory, and a few other things.
- government was involved in some things that it shouldn't have been, it's true. But most of the market did not see government involvement at all.
brought upon by great resources and refinements in technology.
- and these things are 'brought' by somebody investing their savings (deferred consumption based on production) into developing those great resources and that technology. Private business did all of the necessary work on infrastructure and technologies and USA became the largest creditor nation exporting cheap hight quality consumer goods to all over the world, much like China does today.
was boosted through the government's patent and copyright laws
- I always argue against patents and copyrights as they are also government interference with the market. Trade secrets and trade marks are a private matter, all of this patent and copyright business, it's more government nonsense.
How are "contractors" screwed? Oh various ways, such as by having no employment guarantee, no overtime, no benefits, no protection from abuse.
- this is ridiculous. I don't want any of those things, I want the largest possible hourly wage and that's how I choose to work, by foregoing any other perks in exchange for the most money per hour. Why would I ever want to get something that is not monetary in nature, leaving either the employer or government in charge of making decisions on how to spend part of my paycheck? This is the stupidest thing somebody can come up with.
Maybe you are lucky enough to be in a position where you are free to up and leave if things get bad, but other are not in such a position.
- and if you believe that this is your plight, then you get what you can based on your market value, which is mostly objective, but is part subjective, so if you are not a good enough negotiator, you get less. This makes perfect sense.
Health did though. But FWIW, yes, there's a lot more spending on such things these days, heck, go see some older buildings versus newer ones. If you can, get the building plans, see how much more they're spending on the infrastructure to support the fancy electronics of today.
- so when Intel or any other company builds a factory that's government money somehow? No, surely some companies get more preferential treatment than others based on their political connections, but you can't seriously suggest that electronics manufacturers are more regulated than health insurance providers or health care providers. That's not even nonsense, that's worse - that's ignorance of highest degree. Do you know that FDA requires drug manufacturers to go through multiple phases of approval seeking processes, which are not only there to make sure that a new drug is safe for consumption, but also they require proof of efficacy, causing hundreds of millions to be spent on this?
The government has fostered all sorts of development, and that's not even counting how they PAY for so much that they need.
- and they have no authority to do any of it. But if government only limited its functions to border protection, justice system and infrastructure/research and development, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because US economy would have been in most excellent shape.
Sometimes technology makes things less expensive, sometimes it makes it more expensive. When you have a given state, like health, which you wish to maintain, and there's a new option to foster it, it may well consume more and more of your resources, not less.
- technology always makes things less expensive even though the very early adopters may pay more, as the numbers of users go up, the economy of scale kicks in and prices fall.
I suppose you could posit a situation with a cheap and effective youth drug which kept people young and healthy, but last I checked...that wasn't happening.
- with all of the government regulations this won't happen any time soon either. People know they can't do research and hope to sell their inventions in the market without being sponsored by gigantic pharma companies, due to hundreds of millions of dollars and years and years that FDA makes one waste on all the Phase III and IV trials.
I realize the company is free to do what they wish
- not exactly true though, is it? With all the government regulations over employers and all the rights given to employees, which of-course obviously comes from the fact that employees are majority vote, while employers are minority, the labor regulations do not allow companies to do as they like. If that were the case, USA wouldn't have 20% unemployment and this current economic crisis.
The executives take a pay raise for outstanding leadership. The investors get a huge dividend. You get a pay cut.
- makes perfect sense. You are not the investor in the company, you are part of the system that was organized by investors: capital, land, man power. As long as you are working for somebody else and not for yourself, you are just a resource, and all resources are subject to cost cutting measures to increase revenue.
The company was making billions every year.
- likely the company was losing money to government caused inflation, which results from majority voting block (employees) wanting all sorts of free stuff for nothing, so government increases spending but doing so causes capital outflow, and then government prints money.
Health insurance premiums kept increasing
- this is caused by government intervention into health care. Up until 1965 people bought their own insurance and paid for medical procedures out of pocket (unless the procedures were more expensive than the insurance deductible). Government got in, changed the rules, became massive sponsor of insurance and health care providers and caused prices to skyrocket. Where government does not play such a big role, like in all of the technological advances, prices are constantly dropping - you don't have to have government providing you with a cell phone, a TV or a computer, because prices are constantly dropping even though the technology is improving and becoming more and more complex. Still prices are dropping. Again, this is government creating monopolies by restricting competition and getting paid by monopolies, which is all possible only because the people collectively decided that government is there to do this precise thing.
Had I been unionized, I may have been in a better spot to get justly compensated. Nevertheless, I handled it myself. I went into my boss's office and asked for a raise. When I was denied, I turned in my two weeks.
- obviously you overestimated your importance to the company. However you did what you did and good for you. So I guess you found something better than? Excellent.
My argument is valid because even though stock can change hands, the original investment stays where it is - the company, and any of the current stock holders just bought that debt up, which does not diminish the fact that they hold company's debt - it's their savings they used to buy the stock. Savings come from deferred consumption, which means savings come from people's work, which produced some profits, that they didn't consume but instead re-invested into more production.
Of-course there is more to it, some people in a company receive part of their compensation as stock options as well. There is common law that is about 150 years of age now in USA, that bond holders - creditors, are the first people to receive part of the money if a company goes bankrupt and is liquidated, so you are clearly wrong on this.
Somehow you assume jobs are leaving the country because of unionization yet Germany has a robust job market & similar standard of living.
- jobs are leaving USA not because of private unions, but because of government interference with the market. All of the business regulations, taxations, subsidies to monopolies, inflation of money by Fed policy, all of this is causing capital flight. Germany does not have a 'robust' job market. Germans themselves are quite poor compared to the Americans, as Germans do not buy on credit usually, they are living within their means. Europe is actually quite poor with few exceptions.
The point of corporations is to make money but to be unethical in the process is not acceptable.
- what is unethical here? The contracts are being renegotiated, are negotiations unethical? Why shouldn't a company try to lower its costs, now that the premiums for health insurance are rising higher than ever, specifically based on the way that the employees are voting in various elections and the elected government is regulating and subsidizing health insurance and provider oligopolies and causing massive price hikes.
No no, what is unethical from my POV is that an employer should be held responsible for rising costs of services, that are direct result of the majority of voters' (employees') actions.
Four billion in profit last year and twenty billion in the recent years is no reason to demand union workers to pay for the benefits that are taken out of their pay before the compensation is detailed.
- IT IS A HUGE REASON. You are looking at these profits and you are thinking: wow, 4 billion (actually it's 2.5)! Well the revenues are 100 billion, so that's 2.5% (4% for you), which is ridiculous given that real inflation in USA is at around 13%.
The investors need to pull as much money as possible out of that entire operation and transfer it out of US denominated assets and into foreign businesses. It is absolutely imperative that they do this, because they are getting negative rates of return. AFAIC the company is going to fold within 1-2 years, it's going bankrupt. Sure, government may step in and bail it out too, it's not the first time US government would have overstepped its authority, but that wouldn't serve the public interests at all, because just like with GM/Chrysler/Banks/Insurance companies deals, all of the bad debt and bad decisions and moral hazards are then transfered to the shoulders of US tax payers.
In other words the union has only the power to strike. When the corporation can simply replace them without another thought then the corporation has absolute power.
- market forces trump any of this sentiment, but many countries are screwing with market forces, but at the end they will be the ones suffering the market forces screwing with them. There is always reaction to any action.
Which is the reason why Germany is in better shape than the US.
- bullshit. Germany is in better position than USA because Germany is under-consuming and overproducing. People in Ge
Slashdot Mirror
Gold is money in the same way cotton or wheat or any other commodity is money. There is nothing special about it.
no, gold is money because it has been used as money for thousands of years.
If it could be successfully used for many other purposes, it wouldn't be able to serve as money.
I gave an explanation on this some time ago.
It is one in the same. I can see how such a thing could be over your head.
- no, there are 2 things you are saying there, and those 2 things have 2 separate meanings.
You are saying:
1. Bonds are fine.
you are also saying
2. If they are not fine, it does not matter.
Those are 2 statements that basically say: whatever, bonds don't matter. Well, sure, to the rest of the world they won't matter once nobody wants them, even if they can't get anything for them, it won't matter, they'll just lose some savings.
But to the US consumer it will matter plenty, because the products that are financed by those bonds will stop coming in. It won't be about bonds then, it will be about not having any products.
When the SHTF I can use my packaged metals, yours will be worthless. Or I could just take them at that point.
- you do have a point that I will need to have protection some time in the future, but I will be the one deciding when that time is due for me to get that extra protection, just like I was the one deciding when it was time to get protection against inflation in the first place.
See, I don't know what you own, but if you don't own real money, you'll run out of things fairly quickly when there are no things around and what used to be considered money no longer is.
So this is done in photoshop
Oh, and here is what can be done in GIMP ;)
Here is some work by photoshop dilettantes
I am sorry, but just talking about cookies doesn't go far enough to describe what is happening here. It is about zombie browsers, that are just building in more and more functionality to turn your computer into a device that is not controlled by you, but is controlled by various special interests.
On the other hand you, as a user, are clearly not the customer of a browser developer company. The customers seem to be the advertisers, CAs, anybody that wants to control what you are doing. You, as a user, are a product. We used to say this about FB and such, but isn't this also true about browsers?
There needs to be a way for the user to control what is happening on his machine, otherwise it's not a general purpose computer, but some proprietary gadget that you have there. If this is not clear to the browser developers then there will be more forks built that will be Freer for the users, but there also maybe something else done, like a VM to control all of this run away software. Start it in a VM and when you are done, kill that VM and there is no cookie.
Now this is going to be interesting to observe the heads of evangelical Christians explode, that even the scientists who are themselves Christians no longer can maintain that those biblical stories have anything there but a fairy tale.
On a lighter note, here is some NSFW but still quite political material that may cheer some of those Christians up. On the other hand there are naked boobs there, so what do Christians say about naked boobs?
Have you ever wondered about why there are so many lawyers in USA?
I left a few comments on this site about it, and it looks like the reason is government money in education. All of those loans that are given to the students create artificial demand for higher education, so most people who are in colleges are there simply because they are told that if they don't have some degree, they won't get a job. Any job.
In this environment of fear, the students then feel they have no choice but to get higher education but they don't care and/or don't know what they want, so they choose the easiest stuff - sociology or other humanities.
Then they end up borrowing tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for this, it's a huge money transfer from tax payers/creditors to those institutions with students being used as collateral, they end up with mortgages and no houses to show for those mortgages.
So by the end of a 4 year degree, they finally figure out they don't have any better chances of getting a job with that worthless degree, and many of them go at it again, but this time in law, because it's the next closest thing to humanities.
Basically the artificial demand for higher education causes huge amounts of borrowing, which itself pressures the students who don't need to be there to go through a few (2-3) cycles of studying different things, entering the work force much later than previous generations and it produces huge armies of lawyers.
With more and more lawyers you get more and more lawsuits and that shouldn't be a surprise.
I don't understand one thing: why should any weapons be concealed at all?
Actually, can't a state pass a law that everybody is required to have a gun on them at all times, preferably some form of a sub-machine gun at the minimum?
Do you understand that contracts expire or not? Are you pretending not to get it?
This is fear, and that fear is raising gold prices to crazy levels.
- no, this comes from you misunderstanding basic economics.
Gold is money. There is no fear and there is no uncertainty or doubt that fiat is debased and will continue being debased. This government is convinced that it must destroy the currency for their Keynesian solutions to work, so they will do so. Nominal gold value changes but actual purchasing power stays.
US treasuries are fine, because if they fail it won't matter.
- hold on, hold on. So are you saying they are "fine" OR are you saying that it does not matter whether they are "fine" or not? I am not clear on your statement, which is it?
US treasuries are not fine at all, with interest rates being lowest ever (actually 10 year bond hitting 1.99% yield! That's the most expensive coupon and the lowest yield in history of that 10 year bond.)
US treasuries are in an enormous bubble, with Fed now secretly purchasing where it was purchasing openly for 6 months till June 22. Fed was buying 100% of all new printed bonds, there were no buyers. They printed 600 billion USD and that's how much debt Treasury issued in that time.
If the USA defaults your gold will be worthless, since you can't eat it.
- USA has defaulted already a number of times, last was in 1971, when it defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. It also defaulted during Civil war and around WWI.
Does this actually do anything to gold? Well no, because nominal prices do not matter at all, the only prices that are important are prices relative to gold and those are pretty much always the same.
Also I bring your attention to the fact that it is after all a depression right now, since fuel is cheapest ever in history of USA as well - under 10 cents per gallon. Those are 10 silver cents of-course, minted prior to 1965.
Can I eat gold? Well, excuse me, can you eat US dollars? Gold is money, don't forget that. I have a long record on this site, for many years now saying the same thing, and I like to reference those old comments often.
Gold highs do not go back 40 years, look a the plummet in the 80s.
- yes, in nominal terms after US defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes, an ounce started at 35 USD and went all the way up to 800USD, and then Paul Volcker came and set interest rates to over 20%.
THAT was what took gold down, because with money that expensive, people want to have it, not other assets. Gold is money, but dollar became an investment. Money is not an investment, it's a store of value, unit of account and means of exchange.
Of-course gold went down at that time to 350USD/ounce, still 10 times as high as it was in 1971.
However now the interest rates have been 1 and 0% for over a dozen of years, so the debt of USA now is so huge, that 1% move in interest rates causes USA to spend 200BILLION dollars more just to service the debt (interest payments increase by 200Billion with each 1%), so you think they'll bring interest rates back up?
Don't you know that Bernanke came out and said he won't bring interest rates back up for 2 years? That's a huge Bernanke put, he now gave the market a green light to go ahead and gamble on the Treasury market, because he is guaranteeing a return or whatever the Treasury yields. That's why the Treasury prices are up.
But this can't last due to this reason: the inflation, which USA exports to foreign countries, is causing massive price hikes in those countries, followed by social unrest and political instability. Basically by holding US debt and dollars, the foreign governments are asking their own people to sacrifice ever more in terms of their purchasing power to bail out US consumer.
How long do you think that will last for? I don't see that goi
. And you might claim "market pressure", but that's just code speak
- of-course it's market pressure. Which part of this statement you can't understand:
These innovations were hard on employees, and turnover of workers was very high, while increased productivity actually reduced labor demand. Turnover meant delays and extra costs of training, and use of slow workers.
- people were coming and going, he could not retain talent.
That IS market pressure and it absolutely had NOTHING to do with any unions. He was driving his people hard and needed them to work hard and to stay in the company. He extremely anti-union and wouldn't have allowed one in the factory, but the market pressure of people LEAVING the company made him figure it out and do this:
Ford solved the employee turnover problem by doubling pay to $5 a day, cutting shifts from nine hours to an eight hour day for a 5 day work week (which also increased sales; a line worker could buy a T with less than four months' pay), and instituting hiring practices that identified the best workers, including disabled people considered unemployable by other firms
- this is ABOVE ANY UNION SHOP SALARY at the time. He was heavily criticized by a number of other employers and Wall street guys for this move.
However he achieved the goal:
Employee turnover plunged, productivity soared, and with it, the cost per vehicle plummeted. Ford cut prices again and again and invented the system of franchised dealers who were loyal to his brand name.
That's how it's done in business and without government regulations and income taxes. This is search for more profit that makes a man come up with solutions and even invent new business practices (the franchised dealers). That's not how governments or unions do anything, that's how a guy who wants to make money does stuff.
But, of course, you can keep thinking that your anecdotal evidence actually counts for something.
- This is historical data, not anecdotal. This is the recorded history, are you questioning the facts?
Yes, history actually counts for everything.
Forget EVERY OTHER EXAMPLE FROM HISTORY of employers treating their employees like crap.
- so they weren't bending over backwards with their employees? That means the employees weren't really used properly, so then competition, like Ford, appeared. But what are you talking about anyway, you are saying I am providing "anecdotes" and you, yourself, aren't even giving a single example. It's all empty hand waving.
He is not a religious nutter, current POTUS is more religious than that guy (or at least he pretends to be). But a bubble? Seriously?
Do you know that current stocks of gold mining companies are only barely above the 2008 lows? That's while the metal itself is going higher and higher based on inflation (money printing). Stocks are almost not moving though, that's not any bubble that ever existed, in a bubble stocks move. This is fear - people think like you do. They told me the same thing 5 years ago - it's a bubble. They have been saying that for 40 years now, since Nixon defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. But no, US treasuries are a bubble. This is just reflection on where economy is.
The correct person to vote for is found in my sig.
But I'll go further than that, he is also the smartest financially - that hit piece is hacked together to make it seem like a solid investment based on real economic understanding is bad policy. However what it does not say is that if sound policy is enacted, then nominal values of those investment will plunge, as interest would shot straight up, like they did in 1981.
Wouldn't you want your investment to look this way over the 10 year period?
Goldcorp GG since 2001 is up 1000%.
Barrick Gold ABX is up 300% in the decade.
Newmont Mining C Stock NEM is up 300% in the decade.
Agnico Eagle Mines AEM is up 700% in the decade.
AngloGold Ashanti AU is up 300% in 10 years.
IAM Gold IAG is up 1000% over 10 years.
Mag Silver MVG is up over 1000% in 10 years.
Pan American Silver PAAS up over 1000% in 10 years.
Silver Wheaton SLW is up over 2000% in 10 years.
UP: 1000%, 300%, 300%, 700%, 300%, 1000%, 1000%, 1000%, 2000
Who doesn't want an honest, smart, principled guy for president for once?
Once the contract is up for negotiations, any side can require any changes, so what's your point? Verizon can require changes like these.
are you sure about that?
if your workmate catches a look at your dong and mistakes it as hitting on her
- as long as she ain't hit WITH it she'll be fine.
Bush was almost right to ask that question, he just missed part of it.
It's not "Is our children learning?"
It's "WHAT is our children learning?"
I think the children are learning that they have no rights and they must comply and they always can be taken in by the cops, never mind what the infraction is. The children "is" learning intimidation by the state officials.
bag them while they are still young.
Police state? Hell, it's police kindergarten.
and you are wrong and I gave an extremely excellent explanation here in this very story why you are wrong.
that's a worthless comment.
Free market capitalist society increases the wealth of everybody, as it did by producing all of the goods that people want and making those goods better and cheaper and more accessible with every new competitor and iteration.
Actively absent? Must not have paid attention to all the pesky details like railroad grants, continual expansion of territory, and a few other things.
- government was involved in some things that it shouldn't have been, it's true. But most of the market did not see government involvement at all.
brought upon by great resources and refinements in technology.
- and these things are 'brought' by somebody investing their savings (deferred consumption based on production) into developing those great resources and that technology. Private business did all of the necessary work on infrastructure and technologies and USA became the largest creditor nation exporting cheap hight quality consumer goods to all over the world, much like China does today.
was boosted through the government's patent and copyright laws
- I always argue against patents and copyrights as they are also government interference with the market. Trade secrets and trade marks are a private matter, all of this patent and copyright business, it's more government nonsense.
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2328384&cid=36786788
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1803854&cid=33744920
most of it is because there's nowhere to actually grow into
- yeah, says you and Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899. (Everything that can be invented has been invented).
What's left is either occupied or simply not desirable.
- and obviously you and the government are the authority to say what's desirable or not.
How are "contractors" screwed? Oh various ways, such as by having no employment guarantee, no overtime, no benefits, no protection from abuse.
- this is ridiculous. I don't want any of those things, I want the largest possible hourly wage and that's how I choose to work, by foregoing any other perks in exchange for the most money per hour. Why would I ever want to get something that is not monetary in nature, leaving either the employer or government in charge of making decisions on how to spend part of my paycheck? This is the stupidest thing somebody can come up with.
Maybe you are lucky enough to be in a position where you are free to up and leave if things get bad, but other are not in such a position.
- and if you believe that this is your plight, then you get what you can based on your market value, which is mostly objective, but is part subjective, so if you are not a good enough negotiator, you get less. This makes perfect sense.
Health did though. But FWIW, yes, there's a lot more spending on such things these days, heck, go see some older buildings versus newer ones. If you can, get the building plans, see how much more they're spending on the infrastructure to support the fancy electronics of today.
- so when Intel or any other company builds a factory that's government money somehow? No, surely some companies get more preferential treatment than others based on their political connections, but you can't seriously suggest that electronics manufacturers are more regulated than health insurance providers or health care providers. That's not even nonsense, that's worse - that's ignorance of highest degree. Do you know that FDA requires drug manufacturers to go through multiple phases of approval seeking processes, which are not only there to make sure that a new drug is safe for consumption, but also they require proof of efficacy, causing hundreds of millions to be spent on this?
The government has fostered all sorts of development, and that's not even counting how they PAY for so much that they need.
- and they have no authority to do any of it. But if government only limited its functions to border protection, justice system and infrastructure/research and development, we wouldn't be having this conversation, because US economy would have been in most excellent shape.
Sometimes technology makes things less expensive, sometimes it makes it more expensive. When you have a given state, like health, which you wish to maintain, and there's a new option to foster it, it may well consume more and more of your resources, not less.
- technology always makes things less expensive even though the very early adopters may pay more, as the numbers of users go up, the economy of scale kicks in and prices fall.
I suppose you could posit a situation with a cheap and effective youth drug which kept people young and healthy, but last I checked...that wasn't happening.
- with all of the government regulations this won't happen any time soon either. People know they can't do research and hope to sell their inventions in the market without being sponsored by gigantic pharma companies, due to hundreds of millions of dollars and years and years that FDA makes one waste on all the Phase III and IV trials.
Should you have to pay for access to my labor?
- whatever the market dictates.
So hmmm, what sort of dividends do you receive? Some form of profit sharing paid in form of the product?
What kind of performance evaluations do you guys do there?
Is any form of training provided or required to increase productivity?
Do they bring in consultants to observe the processes involved and suggest improvements in efficiencies?
Is overtime paid for or are they just leaving you out in the cold sitting there, waving dicks around (too soon?)
If you have a work related injury, do they send in the nurses?
What do they gift to the retirees, golden cocks?
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couldn't help it, sorry
I realize the company is free to do what they wish
- not exactly true though, is it? With all the government regulations over employers and all the rights given to employees, which of-course obviously comes from the fact that employees are majority vote, while employers are minority, the labor regulations do not allow companies to do as they like. If that were the case, USA wouldn't have 20% unemployment and this current economic crisis.
The executives take a pay raise for outstanding leadership. The investors get a huge dividend. You get a pay cut.
- makes perfect sense. You are not the investor in the company, you are part of the system that was organized by investors: capital, land, man power. As long as you are working for somebody else and not for yourself, you are just a resource, and all resources are subject to cost cutting measures to increase revenue.
The company was making billions every year.
- likely the company was losing money to government caused inflation, which results from majority voting block (employees) wanting all sorts of free stuff for nothing, so government increases spending but doing so causes capital outflow, and then government prints money.
Health insurance premiums kept increasing
- this is caused by government intervention into health care. Up until 1965 people bought their own insurance and paid for medical procedures out of pocket (unless the procedures were more expensive than the insurance deductible). Government got in, changed the rules, became massive sponsor of insurance and health care providers and caused prices to skyrocket. Where government does not play such a big role, like in all of the technological advances, prices are constantly dropping - you don't have to have government providing you with a cell phone, a TV or a computer, because prices are constantly dropping even though the technology is improving and becoming more and more complex. Still prices are dropping. Again, this is government creating monopolies by restricting competition and getting paid by monopolies, which is all possible only because the people collectively decided that government is there to do this precise thing.
Had I been unionized, I may have been in a better spot to get justly compensated. Nevertheless, I handled it myself. I went into my boss's office and asked for a raise. When I was denied, I turned in my two weeks.
- obviously you overestimated your importance to the company. However you did what you did and good for you. So I guess you found something better than? Excellent.
Can't wait for the next research resulting in this headline:
Watching Porn and Jerking Off Increases Work Productivity (and lowers violence).
My argument is valid because even though stock can change hands, the original investment stays where it is - the company, and any of the current stock holders just bought that debt up, which does not diminish the fact that they hold company's debt - it's their savings they used to buy the stock. Savings come from deferred consumption, which means savings come from people's work, which produced some profits, that they didn't consume but instead re-invested into more production.
Of-course there is more to it, some people in a company receive part of their compensation as stock options as well. There is common law that is about 150 years of age now in USA, that bond holders - creditors, are the first people to receive part of the money if a company goes bankrupt and is liquidated, so you are clearly wrong on this.
Somehow you assume jobs are leaving the country because of unionization yet Germany has a robust job market & similar standard of living.
- jobs are leaving USA not because of private unions, but because of government interference with the market. All of the business regulations, taxations, subsidies to monopolies, inflation of money by Fed policy, all of this is causing capital flight. Germany does not have a 'robust' job market. Germans themselves are quite poor compared to the Americans, as Germans do not buy on credit usually, they are living within their means. Europe is actually quite poor with few exceptions.
The point of corporations is to make money but to be unethical in the process is not acceptable.
- what is unethical here? The contracts are being renegotiated, are negotiations unethical? Why shouldn't a company try to lower its costs, now that the premiums for health insurance are rising higher than ever, specifically based on the way that the employees are voting in various elections and the elected government is regulating and subsidizing health insurance and provider oligopolies and causing massive price hikes.
No no, what is unethical from my POV is that an employer should be held responsible for rising costs of services, that are direct result of the majority of voters' (employees') actions.
Four billion in profit last year and twenty billion in the recent years is no reason to demand union workers to pay for the benefits that are taken out of their pay before the compensation is detailed.
- IT IS A HUGE REASON. You are looking at these profits and you are thinking: wow, 4 billion (actually it's 2.5)! Well the revenues are 100 billion, so that's 2.5% (4% for you), which is ridiculous given that real inflation in USA is at around 13%.
The investors need to pull as much money as possible out of that entire operation and transfer it out of US denominated assets and into foreign businesses. It is absolutely imperative that they do this, because they are getting negative rates of return. AFAIC the company is going to fold within 1-2 years, it's going bankrupt. Sure, government may step in and bail it out too, it's not the first time US government would have overstepped its authority, but that wouldn't serve the public interests at all, because just like with GM/Chrysler/Banks/Insurance companies deals, all of the bad debt and bad decisions and moral hazards are then transfered to the shoulders of US tax payers.
In other words the union has only the power to strike. When the corporation can simply replace them without another thought then the corporation has absolute power.
- market forces trump any of this sentiment, but many countries are screwing with market forces, but at the end they will be the ones suffering the market forces screwing with them. There is always reaction to any action.
Which is the reason why Germany is in better shape than the US.
- bullshit. Germany is in better position than USA because Germany is under-consuming and overproducing. People in Ge